City Ease Past Brentford into the Carabao Cup Semi Finals

 Amar Zukancic

    On Wednesday evening City eased past Brentford to move into the Semi Finals of the Carabao Cup, where they will take on Newcastle with the 2nd leg being at The Etihad. Pep made quite a few changes to the lineup, but that never caused them any issues and City comfortably put Brentford aside. It was never in doubt despite the squad rotations and weather, and City never got put off their rhythm and played their game. It was an all round good performance that was solid on both sides of the pitch, and was enough to get City back into the Carabao Cup Semi Finals for the first time since the 2020/21 season.

    It started off back and forth, but City were on the front foot. Cherki, Bobb, and Reijders all looked lively, but they just weren't able to find the back of the net. After about 20 minutes Khushanov made a terrible challenge where he was lucky to leave with a yellow, and unfortunately Bobb left the pitch injured once again. Half an hour in, Mukasa sent in a good corner that was batted to the edge of the box. There was Rayan Cherki who belted it into the roof of the net with his “weak” right foot. It was one of the best goals you’ll see all season, it was a perfectly taken strike from Phil Foden’s “zone 14” and it gave City the lead. The next 40 minutes consisted of Cherki, Foden, and O”Reilly toying with the opponents, connecting with interchanges that left everyone in awe. In the 67th minute Savinho got the goal he probably deserved, after making a great run and fizzing the ball at the far post. It got a lucky deflection that carried it over the Brentford goalkeeper, but Savinho deserved a goal for his performance. After that the match died down, and City saw it out. Despite a few good chances in the last few minutes, City left with a convincing 2-0 win.
    

    There were quite a few standouts. The first one was Khushanov. In the first half he looked very far out of his element. He was playing sloppy, rushed, and late, and was going too hard into too many bad challenges. He was showing why he is so far down in the pecking order, and he left a lot to be desired. The second half was the polar opposite. He came out much sharper, cleaner, and concentrated. He had Schade in his back pocket, sniffed out any semblance of a Brentford attack, and was calm and collected with the ball at his feet. It was a class second half recovery from him. Another standout was James Trafford. He is a player who hasn't played as much as he'd like as the backup goalkeeper, but he was immense today. No mistakes, great concentration in bad weather, great passing and distribution, and most importantly a clean sheet. Pep said that he will be with us for the rest of the season, so you have to think that the rest of this tournament and FA Cup will be his. Just as Ortega got the domestic cups in the past, it is Trafford’s role now and hopefully he can bring the trophy home. The last one is Savinho. He is such a weird player where he is so bipolar. Sometimes he is good, most of the time he is bad. It seems like sometimes he does good things by accident, and they just happen to fall to his feet. That being said he has been the subject of a lot of criticism from many people including myself, but since the Madrid match he's been great. His last two substitute appearances against Palace and Madrid were class, and today he was the same. Hopefully he can carry on this form and be a great depth piece for the squad with Doku being out for a few weeks. And of course Rayan Cherki is Rayan Cherki. He is a superstar in the making, he’s our #10, and the partnership of him and Foden will take us back to Europe’s peak.

    Overall this was an amazing result. Brentford is a team that's given us a few issues the past few years like when they did the league double over us in the 2022/23 season, so they could've easily taken this game away from us. Despite that, it was an easy match for us and we churned out another win. This is a great spot to be in as we are back to the City of old, as we churn out results like clockwork, and have a set starting xi. We know our starting xi, we know who our rotational pieces are, and it's all working in unison. The starters got their rest for the weekend, the others got their chance to show what they can do, and we’re progressing in the cups and the league. We’re now on a 6 match winning streak, and have won 13 of 16 since our draw at Monaco on October 1st. Now we move onto a stretch of 5 premier league matches in a row, starting with West Ham on Saturday.